Back in my stride

Down in the valley
The first thing I notice, down in the valley, is how much water there is compared to my last visit in April.
I decided I would fish the first pond, it was full to overflowing. In fact at the bottom end, it was emptying across the track and back into the spring fed stream.
I think I've mentioned that all the lakes/ponds/reservoirs are spring fed, well the ground/chalk must be saturated.The water table full to the  brim!

My bait today is a choice of worm,bread, prawns and some, as it turned out, not so soft, hookers.
Hempseed for loose feed.











My intention was to fish for perch, crucian and roach, as it turned out my first cast with a big dendrobaena was a perch of 2lb14ozs. I thought it was bigger!

I'm outahere!

So feeling quite confident I carried on with the worm, but very soon found that no matter what bait I was using, the hemp had attracted some hungry carp, so many in fact averaging around the 7/8lb mark, that they became a nuisance on my relatively light tackle.
I had a couple of roach and rudd but the carp were just taking everything I threw at them.

the first

the last

I packed up early, well before the sun set and the geese moved onto the bigger lake!

Bite!
The insect bite on my elbow, isn't!
In fact it's something called  Olecranon bursitis or student/plumbers/miners elbow, brought on possibly by too much leaning on my left elbow sitting at this infernal machine.....or on the bar!
I went to the doctors because the swelling was now down to my hand. So I saw the nurse practitioner and I'm now on, for the first time ever,as far as I can recall, a weeks supply of antibiotics, topped up with Ibuprofen.

Share update
Regular readers may wonder what happened with my shareholdings in AiM companies.
Well, I've reduced my holdings to some extent to pay for holidays etc, but I retained 3 companies.
Two in cancer research and one in oil exploration.
The bio technology investments are still plodding on, one on paper showing a loss, the other holding it's own, but I knew these would be long termers.
My third the oiler, by the name of Lenigas has been promising good fortune for sometime and yesterday released news of it's first completed drilling of one of 30 proposed wells in Trinidad, and they have hit the motherload.
As a result my holdings increased in value by 169% yesterday!
With 29 wells still to be completed I'm expecting an exceptional return for my original .78 of a penny per share!
More holidays?

Garden
The song thrush nest now has 5 youngsters, but the parents are not doing much damage to my snail and slug population, the veggies are a complete waste of time this year!

Distance shot of the young

The International Drinking Society
Our regular gathering of the old boys, will be next Thursday at a Fullers pub in Islington, not far from the Angel tube. I see the pub shuts at 3pm though, my guess is that at 69, Ivan may need an early night...we shall see.